Concern Grows Over Rail Suicides

Suicide on the railroad tracks is a growing concern in the United States, safety advocates say, but as yet there are no firm numbers on the extent or severity of the problem.

“We hear about it, and we hear that it’s like the tip of the iceberg, but we do not yet collect statistics federally,” said Gerri Hall, president of Operation Lifesaver, a Virginia-based group that promotes railroad crossing safety. “It’s an emerging concern.”

Researchers from the U.S. Transportation Department and its counterpart Transport Canada are planning a joint study to determine the scope of railroad suicides in the U.S. and Canada, said Brian Mishara, director of a center for the study of suicide at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

U.S. data will be particularly difficult to gather, since they will have to be gleaned from thousands of local coroners’ offices. Some suicide cases may be classified as accidental deaths.

“We believe it is time to look to see if there is a problem here,” Hall said.

More than half the suicides in the U.S. are carried out using guns. Suffocation and poisoning are the next most common methods. “All other causes,” which include stepping into the path of a train, account for fewer than 10% of the deaths.

Some researchers believe that as few as 200 to 300 suicides a year are train-related. There are more than 30,000 suicides annually.

Although rail suicides account for a small part of the national total, they affect more than those personally involved.

The railroad industry is seriously concerned about the problem, said Karen Marshall, a Michigan-based suicide prevention expert who has worked with railroad groups, even if the companies have only anecdotal data about its extent.

“Railroad employees are just traumatized when this happens,” Marshall said. “They want to see an end to the carnage.”

Some of the examples are particularly disturbing.

In the early months of 2003, for example, three suicides involving Metrolink trains occurred in Southern California within 10 days.

That Jan. 27, a 52-year-old man drove an SUV into the path of a train in Glendale. Three days later, a 37-year-old man with a history of depression parked his car at a City of Industry rail crossing and was killed.

And on Feb. 6 that year, a 15-year-old carrying a suicide note in his backpack stepped into the path of a train in Covina. The train struck the boy, a student at Charter Oak High School, at 53 mph, authorities said.

In Europe, where the rail network is more extensive and handgun ownership is restricted, suicide on the tracks is a recognized social problem, academic experts say.

Although many of those who attempt suicide by rail are acting on the assumption that a train will kill them instantly, they can survive with devastating injuries.

“One of the curious phenomena in studies of survivors is that most of them believed they would die certainly and painlessly, but the reality is completely different,” Mishara said.

Even in Germany, whose high-speed rail network has the most serious suicide problem, about 10% of those who make the attempt survive, he said.

In Germany, there were 5,731 railway suicides from 1997 to 2002, an average of more than 1,100 a year, Mishara said. Men were more likely to take their lives than women, and a disproportionate share of the deaths occurred in the vicinity of psychiatric treatment facilities.

On the Montreal subway, about two-thirds of those who jump on the tracks survive, he added.

“The people who survive are often extremely handicapped, and those who die don’t necessarily die painlessly and immediately,” Mishara said.

“It’s not a certain way of ending one’s life.”

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Times staff writer Zeke Minaya in Los Angeles contributed to this report.